Bunnies and Bears

Happy + Thoughts = Optimism 



December 2, 2009

Taiwan 2

So, on Sunday, as predicted, we visited Taipei 101. Possibly the coolest part was the elevator, which travels pretty ridiculously fast (16.83 m/s, 55.22 ft/s, 60.6 km/h, 37.7 mi/h). Someone took a video. You can also see the tuned mass damper and a video of the shiny fireworks show that they put on for New Year's. The mass damper didn't move visibly while I was there, but, yes, there is video of it moving available online also. I took pictures, but haven't managed to retrieve them off of my camera yet, and, for that matter, it's not clear to me that there are any more exciting than what you can already find online.

The rest of the day was consumed with trying out the subway system and wandering about various markets. We saw a bit of the nifty night lighting on the skyscrapers at one point as well.

I am reminded again of how awful the drivers are in Taiwan (also a notably bad driver, the little boy's mother in Ponyo). It's basically very unusual for anyone to wear a seatbelt in the back seat also - to the extent that many cars have the seatbelts inaccessible and/or removed. When I was a kid, wearing a seatbelt in the front seat was also not-done, but I think they've passed a law about it or something, since then. Driver's here regularly drive in things that aren't lanes, swerving around to get past slower traffic, speed aggregiously, ignore a large variety of traffic rules, and, most notably, in the case of one taxi we took, watch television while doing so.

On Monday we took the high speed rail to a bus to a taxi to my grandmother's house in Tainan. The high speed rail doesn't really look like much, but does go very smoothly, quickly, and directly (through mountains as necessary) to its destinations, although the destinations tend to be a bit outside of the cities.

In Tainan, the predominant language is Taiwanese (in contrast, in Taipei the predominant language is Mandarin). Since, as mentioned previoiusly, I understand almost no Taiwanese, this means that I find Tainan a bit more difficult to navigate. People do learn Mandarin in schools, so pretty much anyone in the younger generation will speak Mandarin, but a good number of people in my grandmother's generation don't speak Mandarin at all (but may speak Japanese).

I haven't done much in Tainan other than work from home (and eat food =P). I don't really have enough vacation time for this trip, so I need to work from home at least a little bit. The goal is to get all/most of the working from home done before the wedding.

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November 28, 2009

Taiwan

My uncle (mother's younger brother) is getting married, so I'm spending the next ~ two weeks in Taiwan. I haven't been here in about 6 years, so it's a little strange.

We left Thursday on a direct flight from EVA Air. This was my first time flying directly to Taiwan.

The flight was surprisingly good. Although, my brother was unimpressed by the "not remotely top of the line" in-flight entertainment, I found being able to select your movies and TV programs and play games (even against other passengers) and such on your personal screen pretty novel still. We've always flown on Northwest which is stuck in the far past, apparently. I watched Vitus, played some games, and read some papers.
Arrived Friday night, went to my mother's older brother's place, pretty much fell asleep immediately.

Saturday we went swimming and to the "spa" (apparently a big pool with various water jets in different configurations, some hot tubs, and a steam room). Afterwards, breakfast and to Costco. John got contacts and I picked up Ponyo and a selection of six Harry Potter movies. 

Afterwards, we visit some cousins and my mom's sister at/near National Taiwan University. This is my mother's alma mater. My youngest cousin is currently a student, and her brother recently graduated. It's kind of surreal to me how much older everybody is now, my youngest cousin, in particular, doesn't look anything like what I remember. The cousins have all learned English now, and especially since my father (who doesn't speak Chinese) is here, the language being spoken is a haphazard combination of Chinese, English, and sometimes Taiwanese (which I don't understand).

In the evening we went to this ridiculously fancy and expensive Japanese restaurant. The meal was ~60-70 dollars US a person. Bearing in mind that food here is *cheap*, probably about half as expensive as it would be in the US at least. I was pretty full after the 6th course and somehow there were still another 5 courses to stumble through. 

This morning, after giving up on sleeping (blah jetlag), I watched Ponyo. First silently with English subtitles (didn't want to wake people up) and later with the Chinese dub and Chinese subtitles. It's mostly fairly simple language in it, so I might have been able to watch it silently with Chinese subtitles, but it's still somewhat unlikely. It's cute.

Plans for the day are unclear - Taipei 101 followed by...something. Subway tour. Taipei 101 is way taller than the rest of the city. It makes the other skyscrapers look diminutive. Later in the week we will head to my grandmother's place in Tainan, perhaps by the High Speed Rail. Taipei 101 and the High Speed Rail didn't exist last time I was here - there has been a grand infrastructure explosion or something recently.

I forgot my camera yesterday, but perhaps I'll have a chance to take pictures today.

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November 16, 2009

Yet Another List

  • My mint plant fell two floors off of my balcony, so I brought it to work where it has been shedding leaves at a rather astonishing rate (although the remaining plant, though smaller and sparser looks relatively happy). I had assumed that this was due to the plant not likely the fluorescent light as much as a real sun (sorry plant, I like the sun too, but my cubicle doesn't come with it), but today noticed that it seems to have a multitude of small green insects all over the stems. My assessment is - aphids. This seems rather poor. I removed a large number of them with a tissue, and am somewhat concerned that I may actually turn out to be so bad at gardening as to kill a mint plant. And, really, mint plants are nearly impossible to kill. Probably it will still do better outside. I'm guessing that the little insects might at least have to deal with cold/predators there. So will the plant, of course, but mints are perennials. And really hard to kill...right? OTOH, in it's current location there's not much chance of any other plants getting infestations...
  • Incidental, random aphid fact from wikipedia: "Some aphids have telescoping generations. That is, the parthenogenetic, viviparous female has a daughter within her, who is already parthenogenetically producing her own daughter." That is to say, "they're born pregnant".
  • It seems that nobody bothered/was interested/noticed* in the totally trivial puzzle embedded in my last post, so I won't bother coming up with something more interesting/complicated here. 
  • I suppose that makes sense given the expected number of readers for any given post in this journal.
  • Pictures from PCOC (the origami convention) are starting to come in. See some here.  Some of them even have me in them. :)
  • When I start getting wrist pain from computering and such (something alleviated substantially recently by the switch from a mouse to a trackball), I have a tendency to bite my wrists, something that I insist does not qualify as self injury. That said, the other day I noticed I was doing so before lunch and wrapped my wrist to prevent myself from doing it further. The red marks were still very visible at 10 that evening after I had both swum (exercising regularly does more to alleviate this kind of pain than anything else, in my experience) and showered. I'm not sure what this tells us. 
  • Losing hair ties I understand. Hair ties are small. I'm a bit more baffled by my ability to lose headbands.
  • and now i'm back, but the sun still comes up. the ceiling fell on my head. a molten gooey lollipop, the rest of the kindred. and on and on we go again, I don't know why. and zed. the secrets are, "I cannot tell" "we lie upon the bed" You promised me you'd take me now I feel that I've been led. if up and down then round and round. a purple crayon. so qued.
  • I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to keep up this bullet-point posting thing. There aren't always a sufficient number of interesting things that I want to post about publicly.
  • If you've made it this far - let me know if you have any recommendations for: things I should do in the bay area. things I should do in general. knots to learn.
* I'm guessing it was that nobody noticed

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November 12, 2009

And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more

Since it seems that the number of people that reads these lists is just about equal to one

  • unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
  • On Elevators
    • Every day as I take the elevator at work I try and guess which people will get off at each floor
    • Sometimes I try to figure out what algorithm the elevators use (there are six of them). I am not sure how easy this is to accomplish with the behavior I am able to observe - elevator stopping patterns at a floor that I am at and elevator movement of an elevator that i am on (which is to say I am guessing it's not really possible). I am somewhat concerned that they may all be using their own copy of the standard algorithm for one elevator (go up while there are up requests, fetching them as you pass them and dropping them off. When there are no more up requests go to the top-most down request and go down fetching and dropping of the down requests in order. repeat) without communicating with each other. Although, I think I only see two elevators stopped at the same time going the same way on the first floor. On the other hand, not that many people get on the elevator at other floors, comparatively. In any case, given the information I am able to observe, it is likely not possible for me to disprove that they are using that algorithm... 
    • How public, like a frog
    • Sometimes I try to figure out whether putting signs in the elevators requesting that people able to use the stairs only get on and off the elevator at odd numbered floors would have any noticeable effect on energy consumption. 
    • Sometimes I walk up the stairs, but you can't get onto the stairs from the first floor of my building, so I have to take the elevator to the second floor and then walk up, which is just annoying since I am *already* on the elevator
    • A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
    • Sometimes the buttons people press on the elevator form a pretty pattern and I feel obligated to select a floor that will complete it, rather than my own floor (I am still waiting for the pressed buttons to be 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13)... and then I just look at the pattern being really happy about there being a pretty pattern... :)
  • Till the stars had run away, And the shadows eaten the moon.
  • It is actually somewhat surprising to me how few people read this journal. Sort of makes me want to post more to observe this effect in greater detail. I am not sure this is how it's supposed to work.
  • I took the elevator, Sixteen floors above the ground.
  • Relatedly, I have a friend in Boston that I often talk to when I visit there. Each visit, this person comments that perhaps I would be less lonely in CA if people in MA kept in contact with me more (or something along those lines). In any case, the main point of the comment is to make the statement that they will "call/email/skype me or something". I am totally fascinated by the degree to which this does not happen despite it basically having been promised on several occasions. I am not sure whether fascinated amusement is quite the correct response. Perhaps annoyance would make more sense. But it's such an interesting phenomena. Why say that you will do 'X' if you won't? Is the intention always to do 'X' but then forgotten? Does this person struggle with communicating with people not "on-site" in general? Perhaps just to be confusing? Perhaps, despite the impression of the conversation, I am supposed to be initiating contact? mm... life is full of puzzling things
  • Such as the Enigma that I got earlier this week and haven't looked at yet.
  • The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show
  • I am pretty sure I've owned both the shirt I'm currently wearing and the pants since I was in middle school. This qualifies as yet another amusement in my book. I do wonder why I spend so much time contemplating the logic of these rather mundane things. Surely I can find more productive things to spend my thought on. 
  • Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
It is astounding to me that digitabulist is a real word and that it's meaning is so apparently random.

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November 9, 2009

My life in stereo: in which I further demonstrate that I like lists

  • Went to a coworker's house nov. 5 to watch V for Vendetta. They have cats. I am allergic to cats. This seems to have happened at many different places recently.
  • Pacific Coast Origami Convention happened over the weekend. 
    • I hung out with people 
    • "competed" in the "after-dinner entertainment" competition (by invitation only), which consisted of folding a toilet seat cover* (I "folded" an orchid, other notable entries include a toilet, a man to sit on the toilet, and a stall) and an envelope (I folded a penguin, other notable entries include a mailbox and a man sitting on a toilet). 
    • For this I got a free sheet of origamido paper** (I chose blue because it was pretty even though there aren't too many things you can fold that are blue). 
    • I also picked up some nifty folded decorative centerpiece lamps from the dinner. 
    • I am so certain that other people will post their own exhibit photos online that I didn't bother to take any. 
    • My favorite model that I folded the whole weekend was Jared Needle's "Bear 2", his display model can be seen here. I really didn't fold as much as I have at previous conventions, though.
    • Robert Lang, whom everyone was rather jovially referring to as "Bobby J" for some reason (the impression is that he doesn't particularly like the nickname) had a bunch of models in the exhibit that looked like strips of paper woven together in interesting ways. These were created by folding non-square sheets of paper with the aid of a laser cutting to avoid the need for excessive paper creasing. Brian added a model to his exhibit that actually consisted of cut and woven sheets of paper with flavor text that said something along the lines of "folded from one square with no laser computer". It was pretty excellent.
  • Been tying lots of knots. no really - lots. Finally just went ahead and bought some more rope online so that I can stop having to untie them all of the time in order to tie new ones. Rope comes in pretty colors, so I am happy.
  • California continues. It remains less awesome than Boston. well. Scott and I broke up, but relationships are too complex and personal to describe in a blog, so this is all you get: Distance is the suck.
  • The California Academy of Science apparently runs a nightclub on Thursday nights. Science Museum + dj's and dancing + alcohol + science lectures + planetarium shows = what? 
  • I haven't been to the nightlife thing, but I have been to the CalAcademy multiple times. Also
    • the Exploratorium, 
    • the Monterey Bay Aquarium (twice), 
    • climbing and camping at Castle Rock (on different occasions), 
    • Point Reyes National Park, Boston (some number of times), 
    • the Maker Faire, 
    • the San Mateo County Fair (actually pretty excellent, and has rides!), 
    • California's Great America amusement park***, 
    • the de Young museum, 
    • a giants game (where I got an awesome free hat), 
    • and I'm sure various other places I'm not thinking of since I moved out to California.
  • Going to Taiwan for my Uncle's wedding at the end of the month. Haven't been there in something like 6 years and need to brush up on my Chinese rather badly.
  • Somewhat distressingly struck by the observation that we're all getting older all the time
  • Eleanor took a picture of my hair after I crown braided it at Stanford Splash. It looks better than I expected.
  • Speaking of which, I taught a class on giant origami for Splash. It ended up going quite a bit over and had more than it's share of student drama, but we did end up successfully completing a couple of Yodas out of 9 ft. squares of paper. Pictures of Yoda and Splash in general can be found here. My hair is still in a crown braid for most of these pictures although it is probably getting progressively messier.

* This was actually fairly impossible to truly "fold". Most entries were mostly just crumpled into some reasonable shape. Specifications included "no wet folding".
** This is a pretty amazing prize. Origamido paper is currently going for no less than $10 a sheet. See Robert Lang's blurb on it below:

Origamido Paper
I have, naturally, saved the best for last. Without question, the best thin paper for origami in the entire world comes from Haverhill, Massachusetts, from the Origamido Studio, home base of Michael LaFosse. Michael is well-known as one of the world's great origami masters. But he is also a master paper-maker, and over the years has developed recipes and techniques for making paper for origami that is thin, strong, crisp, takes a crease, and isn't overly weakened by folding; in short, it's as close to perfection as I've ever seen. Michael primarily makes paper for his own works, but a couple of times a year, he makes paper available for sale to the rest of us. It's only in stock occasionally—and when it is, the world's origami artists fairly quickly buy him out—but if you're serious about folding complex figures, hie yourself over to Origamido, and try folding the very best. All the papers are pH-balanced. Even more important, the colors come from mineral pigments rather than (potentially unstable) dyes. This paper will last a lifetime.
*** This was fairly excellent as we went to the park quite close to the end of the season and much of the merchandise was selling for $1 as they were trying to sell it before the season ended. Particularly the Nickelodeon stuff as their contract with Nickelodeon expires this year and they are not renewing it. Also there weren't many lines (for the same reason).

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April 28, 2009

Visiting Cambridge

I'll be arriving the morning of May 2nd and leaving in the afternoon of May 10th. Ping me!

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February 15, 2009

Hey all

Since I've been posting to Posterous lately and not so much to other places, I thought that I would go ahead and enable auto-posting from Posterous, so those of you that keep tabs on me from other media (read...basically everybody, since I have almost no friends on Posterous) can see what I'm up to.

Most of my autoposts to livejournal will probably be from my more LJ-like blog at happythoughts.posterous.com,  but I'm also keeping a more media-ful (and potentially more interesting) blog at hawksley.posterous.com. I will probably autopost to facebook from both. (The images are not autoposted behind a cut for LJ and I often upload a bunch of images at a time)

Anyhow, for the two people who want to know what's going on with my life...there you are.

ps. Posterous is awesome.

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February 13, 2009

Cooking Experiment...

Looking into my fridge this morning as I packed lunch for the day I noticed that the cherries were in a little ick puddle.
"Ew, have the cherries gone bad already," I thought as I picked the bag up by the corner. But, no, the dripping seemed to be coming from above the cherries...
"Oh shoot! I forgot about the gravlax!" (and apparently also failed to seal it well enough and all of the curing juices were dripping out)

In conclusion,
Gravlax attempt #1:
Successfully Cured? yes
Dill-y? yes
Proper texture? yes
Unpalatably Salty? yes
Still Good? technically

...I threw it out, I guess I could have used it as flavorful salt replacement in something or another, but the saltiness was definitely a bit much. For the next attempt: less salt (the recipe was *per pound*, doh) + less curing time (don't forget about it...)

(That said, it was actually quite good beyond the being way to salty to actually eat, so there *will* be a next time)

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February 13, 2009

Sore :(

Step 1: Climb for the first time in several months
Step 2: Be really sore

...but as to why all the soreness  is constrained to one spot in my mid-back that shouldn't have even really gotten a workout I have no idea.

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February 12, 2009

spur of the moment sequence to check drop rate

Send one word at a time, get feedback on which are missing. Even better than ping:

a blue cherry digging elephant finds going 'harumph' is just kaleidoscopically lifelike moreover now other purple quiescent rhododendrons sketchily televise unusually vapid water xylophones yelling 'zenography!'

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